A lot can happen in a month

[Defunct]

I was taking/abusing adderrall for about 3 years on and off. This is when my career started heading south, and although I lost my job about 6 months after I started taking pills, I managed to find another one pretty quickly. But, I screwed that up too within 12 months of joining, and had to find another one again.

Anyway this last job was really insane - I worked for a company that paid really really well (it wasn't Goldman, by the way, just in case you're thinking that) but was in fact much more morally bankrupt than you'd ever imagine... just not a good place...especially for an addict. I had a very senior job, was traveling to different countries about 70 percent of the time and that's where the addiction really ramped up. I used it to get over jetlag, then just to get up, and so on.. we've all been there.

After a 3 day binge about a month ago where I had about 4 hours sleep in 72, ate about 300 calories a day and was drinking heavily, I had what I think was a psychotic break (?), in some kind of dissociative fugue where I kind of assumed a different personality... it was so weird and I can't to this day really explain what happened... I told my boss a whole bunch of lies about myself that, ended me up getting fired. Of course he was right - if I'd had someone working for me who did the same thing I would have fired her ass too. But the experience itself still scares me... It was like something inside of me really wanted me to fail, and took over my mind one night. I'd love one day to understand what happened. I've told no one, except my attorney and my shrink. Oh and you.

I was in Istanbul at the time, and flew back to NYC where I live, having given up cold turkey the morning of my flight. That was October 25th.

Since then I tried to take vacation with my husband (but just slept the whole time, the poor man has put up with so much), and I have had no end of health issues -- yeast infections, stomach acid, body aches, acne, gained 10lbs and I am a roller coaster when it comes to my emotions. Today I just feel like sitting around crying. Yesterday I was more productive than I have been for a really long time. I can't really predict what makes a good or bad day any more.

Strangely, although this is a really emotionally harrowing journey, I have never once wanted to go back on adderall. The feelings of constant paranoia, annoyance at my memory loss (I want to learn more about this as it's kind of scary how I feel like someone has cut out whole CHUNKS of my brain), and the pervasive sense of hopelessness that adderall brings is something I never want to replicate. I am learning to discover who I am again.

I'm off to my first intake at the Outpatient facility today, and I guess I'm kind of scared about it, but in a "I'm about to do something big" kind of way, if that makes sense. I had previously thought that what I was going through mentally and emotionally was just an immense loss of confidence that comes with job loss for a very driven career person, but in fact I do now believe that a large majority of my psychological issues are related to the drug, both being on it and coming off it.

I am looking forward to reading more of your stories - this site is a gift, really... congrats to the moderators/creators. Ironically, the fact that I'm not the only one who has done this to themselves, I find very reassuring.

Sorry for the rambly message, those of you that have stuck with it.... and here's to putting one foot in front of the other. Eventually.

[Greg]

You went into psychosis. or amphetamine-induced psychosis. Too much dopamine swimming around in your brain for too long. Same thing happened to me. The first time I went into psychosis I said a lot of crazy stuff to my coworkers and boss and was fired and he told me i needed to get help. Of course I ended up hospitalized. It took me several more years of trying to control my adderall and relapsing before i finally gave it up for good two years ago. I couldn't abandon that invincible feeling of being able to do and achieve anything BLAH BLAH.I knew i was going into psychosis, but I couldn't stop it still. I lived in and out of psychosis for years before enough was enough..

congratulations on taking the first steps and you have tons to learn in your recovery and congratulations on reaching out for support.

[Greg]

I just wanted to add, that from what I read and what ive experienced first hand, adderall-induced psychosis is hardly distinguishable from paranoid schizophrenia. Except maybe, someone in adderall induced psychosis tend to be more vocal about what's going on in their head.

Also, after you experience psychosis for the first time, it becomes easier and easier to go into amphetamine-induced psychosis.

I never mentioned this on the site before. But in my final month on adderall, pretty much every time i took a single adderall pill i would go into a state of psychosis. Prior to that i had to take more than a single adderall pill to go into psychosis. Usually I would be fine in tbe beginning of the day and by the end of the day i was in some state of psychosis, tough times.

(So for those of you who are only in the stage of the addiction where it makes you anxious and paranoid...this psychosis state is where that road will eventually lead you to)

[ashley6]

I have forgotten a little bit about the crazy paranoia and feeling like I was losing my mind. I used to try to calm myself down by saying I wasn't going crazy, but now looking back, I was! I had forgotten what lead me to finally quitting because there were so many factors, but it was because I found out I might be experiencing amphetamine-induced psychosis, so I was either getting committed or quitting. It was a blessing in disguise.

[Defunct]

You have no idea how much this helps... I always thought that psychosis was associated with hearing voices, etc, but I never went through that. Knowing this is what was happening to me is a relief, somehow. Oh, also the paranoid schizophrenia piece was very insightful - I had wondered if there was any connection. Does adderall ever cause permanent schizophrenia?

[Greg]

If you continued abusing it and going into psychosis there's a good chance you'd begin to hear voices. Thats a commonly reported symptom of amphetamine induced paychosis.There was a period when I was hearing voices in a prolonged state of psychosis that lasted like 1 or 2 years (I know) ) then there was a period of time where I was in psychosis but not hearing voices. Anyway, the intricacies of psychosis is really a minute point. bottom line is psychosis is when your functioning as a person nosedives. And obviously there will be slight differences in how it impacts the person. Maybe you take on different personalities, maybe another person hears voices. But there are common symptoms shared by everyone in adderall induced psychosis. And you will see on this site there have been many many stories of adderall addicts who have gone into psychosis. And I have read them and taken comfort that I wasn't alone.

I don't think adderall induced psychosis causes permanent psychosis. But I've heard of it lasting long after the person stops taking adderall. For me, the psychosis pretty much stopped during the first month after quitting. During the first month I felt myself becoming more and more levelheaded and was finally able to begin trusting the words coming out of my mouth. One of the biggest benefits of the first month off adderall was beginning to feel like a sane and normal person again. For anyone wondering what comes before adderall psychosis? I'd say an increasing level of paranoia.

By the way, you mentioned you started taking adderall in investment banking.my first job out of college was as an analyst in investment banking. With those crazy hours, that was the job that pushed me from abuser to full blown addict. ( But i dont blame the job wholly, if it wasnt investment banking it would have been something else) If you were able to handle that industry for years fine without adderall. That is quite an accomplishment. You just don't need it and never did. Stay strong.

[quit-once]

My best friend suffered from amphetamine psychosis last spring. It got him fired and he spent a week in a psych hospital. His wife stood by him and helped him through it, thank god. He said it cost like $15,000 and he had no insurance. The experience was exactly what he needed to make him quit adderall for good, and he is terrified of ever returning to that state of mind. I told him that even one pill could send him over the edge again (I don't know if it is true or not). He is also an occasional alcoholic and he gets way too drunk whenever he drinks but that is only a few times per year. How do you deal with a best friend who gets too drunk and says and does really stupid shit when they are intoxicated? Is it any better than an adderall addiction?

[Defunct]

What you describe about your friend reminds me of something that happened about 2 weeks after I quit adderall; which was after drinking heavily (the first time after quitting cold turkey) I entered another psychosis... making up all kinds of shit about myself, none of which was actually true. Thankfully my husband was with me and was able to recount to me what I had said while under the influence, none of which I remembered. He also took me home when he saw this behavior starting to happen.

So my question is this - once you've had psychotic episodes, does ANY kind of altered state trigger more episodes?

Again, I'm not keen to test the answer... I've quit drinking too, since then, but the correlation seems interesting. Thoughts?

[Greg]

I don't know if alcohol triggered your psychosis. For sure you were still suffering psychosis from when you first broke down. When I first broke down, the same thing happened to me. I said all these lies about myself and I believed they were true. And I sort of blacked out about all of it. But partially because I really didn't want to remember what had happened. I had to let everyone around me absorb what happened. Before that friends and family didn't know about my addiction. After my public psychosis breakdown, they all Knew something was wrong with me, they mostly thought i was mentally ill. they , nor I, knew anything about adderall induced paychosis at the time.it wasn't u til I read books like the amphetamine debate and on speed that I began learning about psychosis. by the way, I don't know if you are dealing with friends or family or whatnot. You can try to explain it, and i also think you have to let them absorb what has happened to you. They will be so happy and relieved to know you are getting help.

[Defunct]

Thanks as always, your comments are so richly helpful I usually read them several times. I didn't know about the books you mention, and will absolutely begin reading right away.

The journey to recovery sounds very familiar - honestly it's still surprising me how deeply this addiction had gripped me. Every day I'm sober I'm grateful that I didn't stay on it for one minute longer. Strangely I am glad to have had the psychosis; I needed a scare like this to make me recognize how deeply screwed up my life had become, and how wrong were all my perceptions and many of my choices. What's scary is how easy it was to get the prescriptions - seriously the doctors I were seeing were handing them out like candy... one doc didn't even ask me why I needed it and whether I'd been on it before. It was my first appointment with him.

To answer your last question, and it's a good one, I do have a couple of people really close to me who know (you've heard about my amazing husband, honestly I think I'd be dead if it wasn't for him), and I told just one of close friends; but my family lives in Australia (where I'm from) and we are not really close. My sister visited last week for a few days but spent much of the time she was here shopping, and I think I wasn't in much of a place to connect with her and tell her how to help in a way that would be impactful.

Part of the challenge for me is I hate admitting I need help, and I am a very private person... quite introverted... am much more interested in hearing people talk about themselves than talk about myself... and I am beyond unconfident with my ability to articulately explain my circumstances to anyone whom I respect. This forum has been invaluable to me.... Dissimilar to other drug forums, I find the commenters on here to be well informed, respectful, not judgmental at all and bang-on in terms of being helpful. And smart!

As for my professional reputation, I'm still at a loss here because I haven't reached out to anyone in my (pretty extensive) network to let them know I'm no longer at my job. I have to work out how to "position" it, and at the moment the last thing I want to do is make up a story, so I am avoiding any networking events, unnecessary emails etc. One day soon I will have to start schmoozing again but I'm procrastinating as I really don't know how I'm going to explain this one. Any ideas? Don't say, "just tell the truth", because as we all know, I can hardly say something like "oh I had a problem with prescription drugs and had to get my shit together"...

Thoughts?

[Greg]

Yes, that is a very tough situation and I've had to deal with that. When you run into someone, you dont say..'welll my life fell apart to adderall and now im recovering' '.. When I run into people, my heart stops. I usually am really vague and just don't offer much info about what ive been up to, am so blatantly vague and then they usually don't really press me for information or anything, lol.

On job applications and stuff like that I explained my period of not working as a family health issue that has since passed. Lol. This is a tough one. It would be great to hear everyone's feedback on this, and hear how they've dealt.

[Defunct]

Great suggestion - family health issue. And it's true. I belong to a family, so it's technically my family's health issue. And I like the strategic ambiguity of avoiding the topic altogether if possible... Always puts the onus back on the person asking; and is a great confidence builder. Thanks as always.

[Greg]

At first I was going to say I had a personal illness that has since passed..but then why bother? There's no need to be so specific. Family health issue is true and sounds just so much better. And they would have to be really obnoxious to further inquire about a family health issue. U know?